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just black or white. You can't possibly have an impassioned immigration discourse without getting one side or the other riled up. Unfortunately, it's not an 'either or' matter. For what is worth, I am an immigrant myself, although I did not choose to come to the U.S. My father worked for an Italian company and the company needed someone from headquarters at its U.S. subsidiary. It was supposed to be a short-term stay, but instead it turned out to be over 20 years (and counting).
Moreover, I have chosen immigration law as my career. I have been an immigration specialist and paralegal for a decently long time. While I have worked mostly in the arena of 'corporate' immigration (that is, for or on behalf of companies seeking lawful employment of foreign aliens who were either highly skilled, highly educated or extraordinary in their fields), I currently work in an area of North Carolina where our immigration clientele is made up exclusively of people who sneak across the border ('without inspection' in immigration lingo) and are seeking help to obtain work visas or any other type of legal resolution to their 'illegal' dilemma.
Unfortunately, current immigration laws are very strict in this regard; if you sneak across the border 'without inspection' there is very little that can be done, even if you are married to 1000 U.S. citizens or have 10000000 U.S. citizen children or pay all taxes on time, short of a life or death issue that may warrant a waiver of inadmissibility. There have been a couple of important amnesties - chiefly in 1986 and the brief and restricted 245(i) which ended in 2001 - but of course the law on the books has not changed with regards to EWI immigrants (that is, "entered without inspection" immigrants).
With respect to my clientele, another aggravating factor is that approximately 90% of them have one or two criminal issues in their backgrounds - DWI and domestic violence. Not all have both, but all of the 90% have the DWI. In certain cultures, drinking and driving are not considered a big deal and there's certainly a cultural component to the DWI issue, no doubt. But in the U.S., a DWI is a DWI and it counts. Even in case of an amnesty, a large majority of my clients (again, I can only speak with regards to them, not the entire EWI immigrant population) would probably not be eligible if more than 2 misdemeanors or 1 felony are present in their criminal records. The fact that these hard-working people may have children born in the U.S. or U.S. spouses or be the sole breadwinners does not preclude them from being considered deportable under the law. North Carolina law enforcement will check on immigration status to anyone caught for a DWI and taken to jail even for one day (they are required to do so for all felonies); if such a person is found to be in the country illegally, then an immigration hold with ICE is placed and the deportation game begins.
We get calls everyday from family members of those who are being held on immigration holds. Unlike any other defendant, immigration holds are not eligible for court-appointed (i.e., taxpayer subsidized) counsel and they have to retain their own counsel or appear pro se. The problem is that the nearest immigration court is in Atlanta and it costs quite a lot of money which many people do not have. Therefore, most risk being deported and then coming back again (still EWI, sneaking across the border), risking being caught and being barred permanently from ever seeking lawful status, regardless of amnesty or changes in the law.
I guess all of the above does not really answer your question, but it serves merely to illustrate the complexities of immigration. Now, since I am an immigrant myself (albeit a legal immigrant) and I work with legal immigrants from all parts of the world (including Latin America), I cannot help but weigh the demands of those who are here illegally versus the immigration laws currently on the books and the torturous path one must follow to obtain a legal visa or green card.
Obtaining a visa to work in the U.S. is a very daunting process, one which requires patience and money, in addition to the ability to meet the criteria. Immigration laws in the U.S. are restrictive - it is the stated aim of U.S. immigration law to attract and retain qualified individuals from all over the world, along with asylees, refugees and immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. Everyone else is on a lower priority for need. In simpler words, a pediatrician from Mexico is much more 'wanted' by the U.S. than a construction worker from Italy. In fact, such a construction worker would stand 0.0000005% chances of ever obtaining a U.S. visa for employment.
As a legal immigrant, it took me a long time to obtain lawful permanent residence in the U.S., after many years of holding a visa and paying incredibly high out-of-state tuition in college. Along with the time it has taken, I had to expend a lot of financial resources that I or my parents hardly had. If I could sneak across the border and not have to do all this work, filling out form after form replete with inane biographical information, getting the runaround every time I called INS (now USCIS) or paying ever-increasing filing fees, not to mention attorney fees, with the understanding that one day I could get my green card with an amnesty law or not risk deportation, I would have done it. But unfortunately, entering the U.S. without inspection is a civil violation of U.S. immigration law. It is as simple as that. I don't have to like it or agree with it - but it is the law of the land.
I am not enamored with the law; it is imperfect, at best. It does not address circumstances where the children of illegal immigrants are now ready to go to college and cannot, due to their parents' status. It does not address the circumstances where families may be torn apart by the deportation of a family member. It does not address the issue that employers are not penalized for knowingly employing illegal immigrants, even though the law says they should. But without law, there is anarchy; can you imagine if the U.S. had open borders? Likely, it would be a race to the bottom; let's see which workers can work the hardest, get paid the least and get as few benefits as possible. We all know, after all, that employers care about their bottom line and not about human capital.
Therefore, in good conscience, I cannot answer your question any more than I can answer the question if there are aliens out there. I cannot; there is no easy way out.
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